A few weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Hagel published his list of six focus areas for the coming year. Here’s his list: Focus on institutional reform. Re-evaluate our military’s force planning construct. Prepare for a prolonged military readiness challenge. Protecting investments in emerging military capabilities Achieve balance Personnel and compensation policy Really? That’s what he’s focusing on? You probably haven’t heard much about this list because it is sooooo uninspiring. If this isn’t bureaucratic gobbledygook, I don’t know what is. Do...

I know. I know. You are asking what can this article possibly be about? Well, it’s all about the DoD budget (the Dream) and sequestration (the Nightmare). I’ve been talking to a few budget folks over the past week and asking how is this year compared to others in terms of pain. The universal answer has been “Not so bad this year.” But soon all our dreams of finally getting some sanity in the budget process will give way to the nightmarish and forgotten process known as Sequestration. It’s been quite a journey to get to where the DoD budget is today....

There were several good articles in the papers regarding the DoD budget over the weekend. The Washington Post had a good one that provided a pretty good summary. As an old Intruder guy I have to point out that the article notes the cancellation of the A6 Intruder, with a nifty link to some information on the Venerable Intruder. It’s not often one gets to scoop the vast reporting resources of the WaPo so here goes: Dear WaPo Editorial Board, The Intruder was retired on 28 February 1997 and most of them are either in an underwater reef of the coast of St. Augustine (known as Intruder...

First thing: Yesterday’s blog on Shared Services fell flat on the website with only a handful of hits. I take it the world of Shared Services is not so hot on the list of “interesting” topics. But there’s still a lot of money to be saved there. In fact, I would contend that there’s a lot of money floating around in areas that most people don’t find so interesting. It’s the uninteresting that ironically is the most interesting in terms of budget cutting. They escape scrutiny during the year-to-year budget battles, floundering in cash. The big...

There was an article in the news this morning that reminded of the days when I would go to the grocery store with the kids ( and now grandkids). It was a Defense News article on the White house pushing for higher DoD budget numbers- about $36 Billion higher than the sequester cap and just about in line with the Murray-Ryan budget deal. But they are also crafting at least $26 Billion in the “unfunded” wish list (See my previous comments about wish lists). It’s like getting to the checkout aisle at the grocery store with your kids in tow and they start picking up all the...